New information programs, new appointments and a slate of new grants to assist the nation’s artistically underserved communities have been announced by the National Endowment for the Arts.
The United States Travel and Tourism Administration has teamed up with the NEA to develop a plan to help instill an increased awareness of America’s cultural diversity to international travelers to the U.S. As part of the cooperative agreement, signed by NEA chairman John Frohnmayer and USTTA head John Keller, African-American, Hispanic/Latino-American, Native-American and Asian-American cultural sites and resources will be identified and included in USTTA’s promotional ventures for international tourists.
In late October, Frohnmayer also announced $6.2 million in grants for FY ’91 to “reach those who have not had the opportunity to experience and benefit fully from the arts in America.” The effort to assist artistically underserved, culturally isolated communities across the country will allot funds in several different categories and will increase by more than $2 million by 1993.
This year’s awards included $2.8 million in States Program grants to 28 state arts agencies to develop arts organizations and broaden public arts access in rural and inner-city communities; $1.9 million in Locals Program grants to 26 state projects to assist in the development of local arts agencies; $397,500 in Expansion Arts Program grants to 11 state arts agencies for regranting to rural arts organizations; $863,600 in Folk Arts Program grants for 24 individual apprenticeships with master traditional artists, and 19 additional grants to provide support for a variety of organizational efforts; and $227,900 for 13 Special Project grants awarded earlier this year to state and regional arts organizations for dance touring projects and jazz programs.
The NEA has committed $500,000 this year to six arts organizations under its new multi-year Arts Education Collaboration Initiative to encourage the development of education programs. The goals of the initiative are to “provide children with more direct arts experiences; to encourage long-term collaborations between arts organizations and arts and education agencies; and to target arts disciplines which receive little or no attention in most schools: theatre, opera and musical theatre, and dance.”
The pilot grants include $150,000 to the Children’s Dance Theatre, Salt Lake City; $25,000 to Dell’Arte School of Physical Theatre, Humboldt, Calif.; $25,000 to Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, San Antonio; $55,000 to Metro Theater Company, St. Louis; $125,000 to the Music Center of Los Angeles, Education Division; and $120,000 to Opera Theatre of St. Louis.
It was announced at the August meeting of the National Council on the Arts that the NEA Inter-Arts program has been renamed the Presenting and Commissioning Program. Beginning in FY ’93, the Theater and Opera-Musical Theater programs will shift their presenter support projects over to the new programs, and in FY ’94, the Dance and Music programs will do the same.
The NEA Theater Program is offering a new grant subcategory, Special Projects/Individual Theater Artists Collaborations, designed to respond to innovative and exemplary theatre projects involving collaborative work among individual theatre artists. To be eligible, at least one of the collaborating artists must have received a Theater Program fellowship since 1987. Project fellowships will generally range from $7,000 to $20,000.
Michael E. Johnson was recently appointed assistant director of the NEA’s Opera-Musical Theater Program. Previously the administrative director of the Des Moines Metro Opera, Johnson has also worked extensively as a stage director and performer in both opera and musical theatre.
Larry Baden has been appointed deputy chairman for management at the NEA. Baden, who had been director of NEA’s grants office since 1986, replaces Cynthia Rand, who left to become director of the Office of Information Resources Management at the U.S. Department of Transportation.
